Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Fastened To The Rock

Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God. Psalm 42:11

Have you ever had an evening where you were so elated over the exciting things happening in your life only to wake up the next morning to feel utterly despondent and discouraged? Many times we let our emotions carry us along on the latest high of some new thing, however when the elation wears off we find our hope has sorely been misplaced and the future looks bleak again.

Could it be that the writer of this psalm had looked to something else for his strength and hope? It almost seems like he is reminding himself, "what are you doing being discouraged? why don't you just put your hope back in the Lord?" This is a good reminder as we can quickly get off track in our 'feelings' oriented society. As long as everything is going ok we think we must be doing fine; only when the proverbial wheels come off the track do we realize there is a serious problem.

Our enemy, Satan, does not always attack us with blatant lies and assaults. Scripture tells us he can transform himself into an angel of light, therefore his attacks often come disguised as 'good' things which are designed to draw us away from the security of resting in Christ alone. Don't be fooled by his subtle schemes, when you find your hope resting in something or someone besides Jesus Christ, quickly turn back and call out to God to restore that joy and peace.

"In Christ alone my hope is found"

8 comments:

Matthew Celestine said...

Good thoughts, Jim.

Rose~ said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Rose~ said...

oops.
Great post. You are so right.

Jim said...

Thanks for stopping by again Matthew and Rose. I appreciate your encouraging remarks.

Gordon said...

Good thoughts. I know from personal experiences that some of my greatest spiritual battles have come on the heels of my greatest spiritual "highs". It's good to keep our hope in the Lord.

Jim said...

Hey Gordon, thanks for stopping by.

You know, that reminds me of the time Elijah stood against the prophets of Baal and then ran away from Jezebel shortly thereafter. Even he suffered from discouragement.

God bless,

Jim

Joe said...

Feelings are fickle. Only Christ is constant.

Good post!

Jim said...

Joe, that is true. We must remember to keep our minds stayed upon Christ Jesus.